BEAUFORT — Several waterways in Carteret County are among those being recommended for funding to repair shoaling from Hurricane Sandy.

Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-NC, sent a letter Dec. 7 urging President Barack Obama to include North Carolina’s coastal inlets damaged in the storm in a funding package to go to Congress to address damage caused by Hurricane Sandy.

“I strongly urge the president to include in his request funding to repair North Carolina’s coastal inlets to their pre-Sandy condition,” Jones said in a statement. “Fishermen, passenger ferries and boaters use these waterways on a daily basis. Repairing them is vital to restoring economic activity and safe transportation on the North Carolina coast.”

Jones said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington District has identified more than $30 million in damage to federally authorized coastal inlet projects. The estimates include:

Jonathan Bingham, a navigation project manager with the Corps of Engineers in Wilmington, said the projects were identified after comparing surveys of the waterways done before Hurricane Sandy’s approach and after the storm.

The waterways impacted by the storm are in Carteret County north, with the worst impact along the Outer Banks.

In waterways such as Morehead City Harbor, the hurricane compounded an existing problem with shoaling.

Bingham said that the Corps has awarded one contract to perform some dredging at the harbor’s outer bar sometime after Jan. 1 and is working on a second contract for the inner bar.

He said the contracts will allow them to do what they can with the money they had available with annual funding but it won’t be enough.

He said the Sandy-relief funds are much needed.

“It would help,” he said.

In his letter, Jones said that damage estimates from Corps districts as well as other federal agencies involved in hurricane response have been submitted and the Office of Management and Budget is putting together the funding request to go to Congress.

Congress must approve the request before the funding becomes available.